PRE-PAL^OLITHIC MAN IN ENGLAND 



By J. REID MOIR, F.R.A.I. 



It has been my purpose in the three articles already published 

 in Science Progress 1 to draw attention to some of the various 

 forms of flaked flints found in deposits of a greater antiquity 

 than those containing the normal palaeolithic implements, and 

 to describe the experiments in flint fracture which were carried 

 out, and which have convinced me that these flaked flints 

 are undoubted works of man. I have endeavoured to establish 

 the fact that in this country we have evidence of a continuous 

 evolution in the making of flint implements, which, com- 

 mencing with the most primitive " eolithic " edge-trimmed 

 stones, proceeded uninterruptedly and inevitably to the 

 production of the well-known pointed and ovate palaeoliths of 

 the river-drift deposits. 



I am perfectly well aware that such a view runs counter to 

 the opinions held by the more conservative school of archaeo- 

 logists both at home and abroad, which, while not denying 

 that the earliest palaeolithic implements cannot represent the 

 first efforts of man in flint-flaking, has nevertheless refused 

 to believe that the races of pre-palaeolithic people are repre- 

 sented, either by their flint implements or actual skeletal 

 remains in this part of the country. 2 It has been the custom 

 with some to look to Asia as the birthplace of mankind, an 

 area, as Keith so truly states in a recent issue of Man (vol. xvii. 

 No. 5, May 191 7), "of which we know almost nothing, and 

 therefore can believe it capable of anything." I have read 

 with care the arguments put forward by various writers in 

 support of this and similar hypotheses, and I have found them 

 to be unsatisfying and unsatisfactory. I am unacquainted 



1 " Flint Fracture and Flint Implements," Science Progress, No. 41, July 

 1916, pp. 37-50; "The Oldest Flint Implements," ibid. No. 43, January 1917, 

 pp. 431-40; " The Relationship of the most Ancient Flint Implements to the later 

 River-drift Palaeoliths," ibid. No. 45, July 191 7, pp. 83-96. 



* See for instance : — " Men of the Old Stone Age : Their Environment, Life, 

 and Art," Henry Fairfield Osborn, 1916. — " Man the Primaeval Savage," 

 G. Worthington Smith, p. 2. 



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